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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => The Basement => Topic started by: Scott Holtzman on May 25, 2021, 09:52:42 PM
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So I am going to try to stay completely apolitical, this is about running a business in a post COVID, post "racial awakening", post politically turbulent time. So business is coming back, coming back is the wrong term, everyone wants to start having festivals and shows, corporate is quiet and being measured but we are close to capacity for the whole season (weekends now) in entertainment of all type, music, comedy, cheer and dance and cultural festivals. Not a word from the big fund raising folks like American Heart Association, Legal Aid and Susan G. Komen all staples.
Small business are complaining people don't want to come back to work and in part attributing to low wage jobs. Some blame it on the continued payment of the supplementary $300 unemployment. Our Governor shut that down pending 7/1 so we will see.
We took the opportunity to raise wages, $20-25/hr and to work even harder to racially, culturally and sexually diversify our workforce. We always have had some great female labor, unfortunately other groups are under represented and we are going to have to work with our STEM and theatrical college partners to solve that as a community member. I feel so bad for only african-american crew member but he was cool and gave me a big hug and said that being back to work and on our team made him feel alive again. I promised him I will step up underrepresented group hiring.
However the first gig was a big disappointment. Clearly a raise did not incentify the low performers. The guys that show up 30 seconds after call in their work boots and pajama bottoms reeking of weed still pulled the same shit. Biggest guys pushing the lightest cases, taking smoke breaks to the limit, every single behavior we have done everything to dissincenitify.
What is everyone else seeing? Any creative solutions to this issue? These folks are all capable they are just so unmotivated in every aspect of their life. Money doesn't even seem to be a big interest but they intuitively know they can demand more now. Labor is our backbone. Without people to unload the trucks, set the decks, run the feeder we can't very well put on a show.
Thoughts?
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So I am going to try to stay completely apolitical, this is about running a business in a post COVID, post "racial awakening", post politically turbulent time. So business is coming back, coming back is the wrong term, everyone wants to start having festivals and shows, corporate is quiet and being measured but we are close to capacity for the whole season (weekends now) in entertainment of all type, music, comedy, cheer and dance and cultural festivals. Not a word from the big fund raising folks like American Heart Association, Legal Aid and Susan G. Komen all staples.
Small business are complaining people don't want to come back to work and in part attributing to low wage jobs. Some blame it on the continued payment of the supplementary $300 unemployment. Our Governor shut that down pending 7/1 so we will see.
We took the opportunity to raise wages, $20-25/hr and to work even harder to racially, culturally and sexually diversify our workforce. We always have had some great female labor, unfortunately other groups are under represented and we are going to have to work with our STEM and theatrical college partners to solve that as a community member. I feel so bad for only african-american crew member but he was cool and gave me a big hug and said that being back to work and on our team made him feel alive again. I promised him I will step up underrepresented group hiring.
However the first gig was a big disappointment. Clearly a raise did not incentify the low performers. The guys that show up 30 seconds after call in their work boots and pajama bottoms reeking of weed still pulled the same shit. Biggest guys pushing the lightest cases, taking smoke breaks to the limit, every single behavior we have done everything to dissincenitify.
What is everyone else seeing? Any creative solutions to this issue? These folks are all capable they are just so unmotivated in every aspect of their life. Money doesn't even seem to be a big interest but they intuitively know they can demand more now. Labor is our backbone. Without people to unload the trucks, set the decks, run the feeder we can't very well put on a show.
Thoughts?
Maybe they think that since they survived without working this long, why bother? :-\
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The WHO laborers ?
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I've raised my labor prices to my clients, because 'you get what you pay for' still applies and my costs for good labor are going up.
I don't see this as a bad thing.
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Incentive and Consequences. Incentive - don't give them the better rate unless they perform. Consequences - they don't meet your standards, they are shown the door.
Unfortunately some people, regardless of a minority status, are just not going to do the job no matter the situation.
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A lot of the really good people, who would do OK in many different industries, have moved to other industries. I wouldn't blame them if they're not in a hurry to come back.
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The answer long predates the current political climate. Hire different people. The minimum rate here at the south end of a large east coast megapolis has for years been $25 an hour plus OT after eight plus holiday time and a half. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that doesn't go up as life and the economy realign. I remember doing shows in a large mid country city famous for it's music industry ten years ago in with the stage crews chain smoked and were thus working one handed until they got a cell phone call and then they stopped work entirely. Set ups and strikes were very slow and unrewarding. As it turned out the prompters in the end didn't pay the rest of the bill so I didn't have to tell them that I would hire union after that and add it to the bill. There is always a good answer as long as the customers are willing to pay for that answer. Customers who aren't often turn out to be bad customers.
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Incentive and Consequences. Incentive - don't give them the better rate unless they perform. Consequences - they don't meet your standards, they are shown the door.
Unfortunately some people, regardless of a minority status, are just not going to do the job no matter the situation.
These solution assume there is a pool of people ready to take their place. Every booking now is literally turning into a massive effort on the call list, then pleadings on a private Facebook page that all the non-union shops use to share labor (primitive but it is some level of cooperation). These folks know they have us over a barrel.
The problem is these low performers use all this to their advantage. There are many people that know the situation yet come in and do a great job and are joys to work with. Then there is pajama boy. He is just the worst of the worst, he knows what he is doing at the level he is working, his work is good and his coworkers always make fun of his bottoms but they are no different than sweats so you can't say anything. Thankfully he wears underpants. It's almost like a game to him to see just how far he can push it WRT to grooming, smoke breaks and work speed.
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The concept of hourly vs work performed always gets to me. Yes, some jobs just need anyone there during a set period of time, but other jobs need to be paid on a performance basis. Eg, if your job is to move a sack of bricks from point A to point B, I don't care how much time you spend on it, as long as it's done before deadline, that's all I care. Those that work faster should either be able to leave sooner, or be able to take on more work and make more money.
As far as the other issue at hand, you are dealing with part time workers. Part time at low pay means low incentive. Part time at decent pay still is sort of low incentive, as this particular job may not be this worker's primary source of income.
If you want smart, talented people working on your crew, you need to find them and then find a way to make the job their primary source of income. This means making sure you have a regular, steady stream of work available for them. Either that, or you have to pay a VERY good wage so that something else doesn't become more important.
Obviously, both of these things are very expensive, which means you need to find a way to pass those costs on to your clients. If everyone is having the same problem, eventually pricing will start to match up, but the struggle to get there is real. There are companies that will hold on to their previous pricing models hoping it will line up. They may get more clients now, but end up not being able to fulfill contracts, or have to pay more for labor than they billed and end up bankrupt.
Right now, just about every business everywhere is struggling to find workers and are increasing offered pay as well as increasing the pay for workers that they can find. At the same time, prices are rising across the board for just about everything.
We're likely entering a period of hyper inflation, so it's important to plan your pricing based on that. It might even be a good idea to make sure anything you quote that's any time in the future has contingencies in place based on the market rate for things you're offering. There are venues around here that are upping prices for customers - even ones with signed contracts - due to increased material costs for the event. It's already worded in the contract that they can do that. We need to do the same!
And no, race or gender have absolutely NO bearing on my decision to hire anyone. There is zero chance I'll go out of my way to hire someone for either of those reasons. If I have a pool of candidates to pick from, I pick the best one. End of discussion.
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The concept of hourly vs work performed always gets to me. Yes, some jobs just need anyone there during a set period of time, but other jobs need to be paid on a performance basis. Eg, if your job is to move a sack of bricks from point A to point B, I don't care how much time you spend on it, as long as it's done before deadline, that's all I care. Those that work faster should either be able to leave sooner, or be able to take on more work and make more money.
As far as the other issue at hand, you are dealing with part time workers. Part time at low pay means low incentive. Part time at decent pay still is sort of low incentive, as this particular job may not be this worker's primary source of income.
If you want smart, talented people working on your crew, you need to find them and then find a way to make the job their primary source of income. This means making sure you have a regular, steady stream of work available for them. Either that, or you have to pay a VERY good wage so that something else doesn't become more important.
Obviously, both of these things are very expensive, which means you need to find a way to pass those costs on to your clients. If everyone is having the same problem, eventually pricing will start to match up, but the struggle to get there is real. There are companies that will hold on to their previous pricing models hoping it will line up. They may get more clients now, but end up not being able to fulfill contracts, or have to pay more for labor than they billed and end up bankrupt.
Right now, just about every business everywhere is struggling to find workers and are increasing offered pay as well as increasing the pay for workers that they can find. At the same time, prices are rising across the board for just about everything.
We're likely entering a period of hyper inflation, so it's important to plan your pricing based on that. It might even be a good idea to make sure anything you quote that's any time in the future has contingencies in place based on the market rate for things you're offering. There are venues around here that are upping prices for customers - even ones with signed contracts - due to increased material costs for the event. It's already worded in the contract that they can do that. We need to do the same!
And no, race or gender have absolutely NO bearing on my decision to hire anyone. There is zero chance I'll go out of my way to hire someone for either of those reasons. If I have a pool of candidates to pick from, I pick the best one. End of discussion.
I agree with everything you said. It will be interesting to see how it plays out and that new clause in the contract is a great idea. I might even send out amendments to operating contracts that govern some of the venues we staff.
Having full time workers, that can be offered benefits and maybe even equity is the dream. I have no kids, if my wife passed before me the sound company would have no living ownership. I have struggled with this succession planning for awhile. My dream is to find some motivated folks that equity participation would be a motivator for them to learn all aspects of the business, when I am older an don't want to or can't work every day the income from these sweat equity partners paying debt to me would be very nice. The largest production company in the great lakes only has a handful of full time laborers so this is a stretch goal. I have no idea what goes on behind the doors at 8th day. For being so big they don't participate in what I would call the local market.
As far as your last paragraph we can't talk about that here but it might be an interesting discussion off camera.
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These solution assume there is a pool of people ready to take their place. Every booking now is literally turning into a massive effort on the call list, then pleadings on a private Facebook page that all the non-union shops use to share labor (primitive but it is some level of cooperation). These folks know they have us over a barrel.
The problem is these low performers use all this to their advantage. There are many people that know the situation yet come in and do a great job and are joys to work with. Then there is pajama boy. He is just the worst of the worst, he knows what he is doing at the level he is working, his work is good and his coworkers always make fun of his bottoms but they are no different than sweats so you can't say anything. Thankfully he wears underpants. It's almost like a game to him to see just how far he can push it WRT to grooming, smoke breaks and work speed.
I think Scott Helmke's point is super pertinent to this (and I'm interested to see how it plays out). Our industry has traditionally attracted people for whom money isn't a particularly large motivator to begin with (can't imagine why...), and my guess is that this is even more true now than it was before (since the only people who are left are the ones who either could survive not working for a year, or who literally can't do anything else). This isn't to say you shouldn't pay your employees well, but more to suggest that I wouldn't necessarily expect to see correlation (let alone causation) between increases in pay and performance even for your best workers.
I know nothing about IATSE Local 27 (except that I can't find their website), but have you given them a call? I mean, it can't be any worse than pajama boy, can it?
-Russ
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These solution assume there is a pool of people ready to take their place. Every booking now is literally turning into a massive effort on the call list, then pleadings on a private Facebook page that all the non-union shops use to share labor (primitive but it is some level of cooperation). These folks know they have us over a barrel.
The problem is these low performers use all this to their advantage. There are many people that know the situation yet come in and do a great job and are joys to work with. Then there is pajama boy. He is just the worst of the worst, he knows what he is doing at the level he is working, his work is good and his coworkers always make fun of his bottoms but they are no different than sweats so you can't say anything. Thankfully he wears underpants. It's almost like a game to him to see just how far he can push it WRT to grooming, smoke breaks and work speed.
Like I said, incentive. If you started paying $100/hr + benefits, you'd have a huge pool of people at the ready. The referrals alone would be enough, let alone dry hires.
For pj boy specifically, perhaps talking to him and seeing what it would take to motivate him to meet your standards?
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In my experience on both sides of the table, it comes down to policy. If you are an equal opportunity employer, and you employ without prejudice, you shouldn't have to worry, prioritize, or even consider overlooking a potential employee because of their skin color, religion, or creed; you hire the best candidate regardless of anything. Next is that good help is hard to find. Any employee that has no vested interest in you or your company is probably not going to have your best interests in mind; they are there for a paycheck. Finally, pay doesn't motivate people to work better, it motivates them to come to collect a paycheck.
Having an employee handbook, company policy, guidelines, best practices and standards et all, is a great way to set the tone. PJ boy would know on his first day of work that he would be expected to wear at least shorts, suitable shoes, and look presentable. And if he didn't show up that way, stick to your guns, send him home and just eat the pain of the added work he created for you. But the policy has to exist and be adhered to. If the employees don't follow policy, then 3 strikes you're out.
I do feel our industry does need to pay around $20 an hour for entry-level work, but it also has to push to enhance the employee's learning and skills. I have worked for a few places where the company will outsource all the fun work to a freelancer ( like myself ) while overlooking a perfectly good employee who really wants to get dirty doing my task. When you don't let people on your team take the reigns, they feel undervalued, overlooked, and frankly discouraged to be any better than a lumper. I left a company specifically for that reason. They hired an out-of-town freelancer who wasn't any better than I was to do a job I really wanted to do, one too many times...
I am now a production manager for a company, and my policy is to enable and empower my staff by teaching and pushing them to be able to do what I do so I don't have to hire a freelancer to white glove my shows. I took a pay cut in accepting this job, but that doesn't change my work ethic. I still have the same goals and ambitions, I just don't have to travel the country anymore. My wife is happy that I am home every night and I am happy with that too. The work ethic is in the employee, not their paycheck. Finding a good employee is like finding gold, if you find one, you pay them whatever it takes to keep them from looking elsewhere, if they are not a good employee, you pay them as little as you can in hopes that they find the door on their own. A great team isn't created, it is assembled, unfortunately. It is very hard to train an entire team to be a team and also be the best of what their role requires. You have to find someone that is already really good at their role and wants to be a team player and can work as a team with those you already have.
This is what makes the pandemic even harder on our industry. Most of the good workers went on to do other things. Because they are good workers and don't wait for a handout or to take advantage of the situation. The mooches and those that just want an easy buck will crawl out of the tulies to snag a crumb, but they aren't there for you, they are there for them. It is weeding those types out that sucks.
Good luck on your hiring, but I think having an employee policy handbook will really help.
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Then there is pajama boy. He is just the worst of the worst, he knows what he is doing at the level he is working, his work is good and his coworkers always make fun of his bottoms but they are no different than sweats so you can't say anything. Thankfully he wears underpants. It's almost like a game to him to see just how far he can push it WRT to grooming, smoke breaks and work speed.
Have you tried just not calling him any more? If he's not a full time employees and isn't part of a union call list (if he is part of union call list, showing up after the call starts, even by 30 seconds would get him tossed anyway), what's keeping him on your call list?
The weed thing would end it for me. We have the medical marijuana here in Oklahoma now, and the cards are easier to get than buying stamps at the post office. I can't stand the smell of weed. It makes me sick just smelling it on people's clothes and I would not be able to work with someone who reeked that bad. I was at a local convenience store a while back getting a snack for the drive home. A guy next to me reeked of weed and in the few seconds that he was standing next to me I started to feel sick just being within his reeking zone.
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We're a few months behind you guys up here, but I'm am dreading the thought of having to staff our first show back. So many people have left the industry, left the country or moved into sectors that were able to stay up and running (film).
Also, I really hope that Pajama Guy is secretly a PSW member and can chime in for us.
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The work ethic is in the employee, not their paycheck. Finding a good employee is like finding gold, if you find one, you pay them whatever it takes to keep them from looking elsewhere, if they are not a good employee, you pay them as little as you can in hopes that they find the door on their own. A great team isn't created, it is assembled, unfortunately. It is very hard to train an entire team to be a team and also be the best of what their role requires. You have to find someone that is already really good at their role and wants to be a team player and can work as a team with those you already have.
My Sunday School teacher is works is an executive with a company you have heard of and does business consulting around the country. He makes the point that most businesses hire for competency-but fire people for character. Years ago, as an hourly industrial electrician, when my company wanted to add another electrician, I told my boss, "hire someone that is teachable-I don't really care what they know". Part of the appeal when I left running my own one man shop to become a maintenance manager was that I had a couple of young guys that were ambitious-even if the resume/tech knowledge was not what we needed. Five years later, I have a top notch maintenance tech that applied himself at the community college-allowing me to bring previously contracted work in house where I get a better cost but also better results because he knows our processes. We have been able to build a solid team that keeps things running smoothly most of the time-and are in the position of being able to hire entry level people and train them in house.
I know that is tough to do with part time help. And part of the challenge is keeping skilled people you have trained.
I would agree that race/gender or any other non-work characteristic should have no place in hiring; however, I would hire a less "qualified" candidate that I felt had a strong work ethic and desire to improve themselves over a "prime" candidate that showed character issues-such as late shows/attendance, etc. I might (and have) start them off at a lower wage with the incentive of quick increases as skills improve-of course, you have to deliver on that promise. I have nothing against giving an individual that you perceive as being disadvantaged a chance-but to me that is based on individual circumstances.
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My Sunday School teacher is works is an executive with a company you have heard of and does business consulting around the country. He makes the point that most businesses hire for competency-but fire people for character. Years ago, as an hourly industrial electrician, when my company wanted to add another electrician, I told my boss, "hire someone that is teachable-I don't really care what they know". Part of the appeal when I left running my own one man shop to become a maintenance manager was that I had a couple of young guys that were ambitious-even if the resume/tech knowledge was not what we needed. Five years later, I have a top notch maintenance tech that applied himself at the community college-allowing me to bring previously contracted work in house where I get a better cost but also better results because he knows our processes. We have been able to build a solid team that keeps things running smoothly most of the time-and are in the position of being able to hire entry level people and train them in house.
I know that is tough to do with part time help. And part of the challenge is keeping skilled people you have trained.
I would agree that race/gender or any other non-work characteristic should have no place in hiring; however, I would hire a less "qualified" candidate that I felt had a strong work ethic and desire to improve themselves over a "prime" candidate that showed character issues-such as late shows/attendance, etc. I might (and have) start them off at a lower wage with the incentive of quick increases as skills improve-of course, you have to deliver on that promise. I have nothing against giving an individual that you perceive as being disadvantaged a chance-but to me that is based on individual circumstances.
That is tough to do part time. We already make our part time people be full W2 employees, sometimes I give in and pay cash out of my pocket which is so stupid but there are a few super A1's in town that only work for cash.
Back on subject. I agree completely and in my networking world I always say we hire people not skillsets. We already have a full time shop manager A1, that was a huge leap for us as our nut just grows. Having 3 core laborers would be incredible but that in the end is going to be 180k a year. We would have to increase booking by 1/3 to absorb that. We already want to bring on a business development person so the chicken may follow the egg.
I can't believe 3 months ago I was staring at the full warehouse like it was looking into the abyss. We even used the restart to do a purge. I raised prices on customers that I didn't really want and knew they wouldn't pay.
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As a call steward, last week I had to remind a follow spotlight operator that "show blacks" attire were required when not operating from an enclosed booth. Pre-pandemic, I had to admonish a couple of workers for wearing T-shirts with partisan political messages or profanity. None were employees of the shop I manage...
The various crafts of producing events attract a lot of folks with various baggage - from family issues to big bowls of alphabet soup acronym diagnoses - and as managers we need to suss out how to deploy a worker that provides us with the greatest return on that employee investment.
Swaffer's comment about workers being hired for competence but fired for character issues is spot on and I love his extension - hire people that are trainable. So far the hardest are folks that need "re-training" because their current work flows or understandings do not comport with The Way We Do Things. It's easier to start tabula rasa.
Employees have no idea how much revenue must increase in order for their position to be profitable to the company.
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Also, I really hope that Pajama Guy is secretly a PSW member and can chime in for us.
So that he can be hit by Scott "Welcome Wagon" Holtzman? ;) ;D ;D ;D ;D
PS: Scott I love your responses to first time posters :)
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As a call steward, last week I had to remind a follow spotlight operator that "show blacks" attire were required when not operating from an enclosed booth. Pre-pandemic, I had to admonish a couple of workers for wearing T-shirts with partisan political messages or profanity. None were employees of the shop I manage...
The various crafts of producing events attract a lot of folks with various baggage - from family issues to big bowls of alphabet soup acronym diagnoses - and as managers we need to suss out how to deploy a worker that provides us with the greatest return on that employee investment.
Swaffer's comment about workers being hired for competence but fired for character issues is spot on and I love his extension - hire people that are trainable. So far the hardest are folks that need "re-training" because their current work flows or understandings do not comport with The Way We Do Things. It's easier to start tabula rasa.
Employees have no idea how much revenue must increase in order for their position to be profitable to the company.
I have experienced this in my machining business also. The best employee I ever had was not a machinist per se when he came in, but he was constantly trying to improve himself and the processes he was working on.
I've also had very experienced people that I had to let go because they didn't really want to work.
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So that he can be hit by Scott "Welcome Wagon" Holtzman? ;) ;D ;D ;D ;D
PS: Scott I love your responses to first time posters :)
Pajama guy is somewhat of a legend in CLE. I doubt he is a PSW member.
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IDK how it works for you, but I know a couple of companies that solved the whole "pajama" issue with providing people with work clothes.
Nothing fancy, just regular work pants with knee padding and a black shirt with a small company logo.
This was dubbed "for safety reasons" and worked well.
OTOH I work on various levels in this business and own almost no black clothes, you can get very far by dressing properly without using black as the only color.
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So that he can be hit by Scott "Welcome Wagon" Holtzman? ;) ;D ;D ;D ;D
PS: Scott I love your responses to first time posters :)
Same here and when Tim made the reference I couldn't resist. :)
I second and third the "Attitude is pretty much everything" with help and yeah, work ethic and trainability are a must. Eagerness to learn and show up to work are the things I look for. In return you have to treat them right and pay them right.
They must be able to follow simple instructions - I have zero patience for any less.
One thing I've learned over the years: Stupidity is irreversible
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Same here and when Tim made the reference I couldn't resist. :)
I second and third the "Attitude is pretty much everything" with help and yeah, work ethic and trainability are a must. Eagerness to learn and show up to work are the things I look for. In return you have to treat them right and pay them right.
They must be able to follow simple instructions - I have zero patience for any less.
I tell people there is no such thing as a stupid question. . . the first time you ask it. There is real value in realizing you don't know everything.
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We're likely entering a period of hyper inflation, so it's important to plan your pricing based on that. It might even be a good idea to make sure anything you quote that's any time in the future has contingencies in place based on the market rate for things you're offering. There are venues around here that are upping prices for customers - even ones with signed contracts - due to increased material costs for the event. It's already worded in the contract that they can do that. We need to do the same!
Local ATL News did a story about Home Builders cancelling contracts on houses under construction and offering to sign new contracts (also cancellable by the Builder, NOT by the Buyer) at higher prices. I can understand both sides of this issue, as supply and cost of materials has skyrocketed.
IMHO, it's a really good idea for us to have some sort of "market adjustment" clause in contracts - especially those a long way out.
Dave
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They must be able to follow simple instructions - I have zero patience for any less.
And what about for "complex instructions"?
Sometimes the difference between simple and complex might be a topic of contention... ???
As a kid, it was the simple jobs that I tended to mess up. But give me something complex or challenging and my mind woke up.
I suspect that many of us are challenged because we hire for the mundane and then complain that we aren't finding good talent. It's hard to think about this differently when you are following a business model that calls for "general labor" or "box pushers" 80% of the time.
If you had 12 people in your primary labor pool and 11 of them could handle running the entire crew AND customer interfacing AND advancing a show (etc, etc) but you had to pay them full rate to push boxes 80% of the time, would you be happy?
I certainly haven't figured this out.
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I tell people there is no such thing as a stupid question. . . the first time you ask it. There is real value in realizing you don't know everything.
Yes, and the universal axiom applies: Stupidity is irreversible :)
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Yes, and the universal axiom: Stupidity is irreversible :)
"Stupidity is a lot like nuclear power. It's the most powerful substance on earth, and you don't want to get any on you."
-Dilbert
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"Stupidity is a lot like nuclear power. It's the most powerful substance on earth, and you don't want to get any on you."
-Dilbert
ROFL!
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Coming at it from the other side, I figured out pretty early in my career that the secret to success in this industry as a freelancer is pretty simple:
- Don't suck
- Don't be a dick
There are a few jobs where personability can override any lapses in capability (we've all met that BE), and there are fewer still (lucrative, too) where technical prowess is so highly valued that personality can be overlooked, but the vast majority of jobs fall squarely in the middle: the job doesn't need the best there is or the nicest there is, it just needs someone who doesn't suck and isn't a dick.
{...} OTOH I work on various levels in this business and own almost no black clothes, you can get very far by dressing properly without using black as the only color.
I think this might be a cultural thing. Around here, outside of certain corporate A/V jobs (where a suit an tie is expected), "show attire" means all black and no logos (unless the employer is providing the shirts).
-Russ
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We've essentially been through a war, though not one fought on our own soil (USA has been very lucky in that regard). A very large number of Americans have died or been disabled, the supply chains have been shifted a bit because of different priorities, and we're now struggling to get back to "normal". But like any war, a lot of people are dealing with PTSD at various levels and the whole thing is going to take a while to sort itself out. Not everybody is going to go back to the same career they had before, not every business is going to survive.
We are living in extraordinary times. There will be books and movies about this period.
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We've essentially been through a war, though not one fought on our own soil (USA has been very lucky in that regard). A very large number of Americans have died or been disabled, the supply chains have been shifted a bit because of different priorities, and we're now struggling to get back to "normal". But like any war, a lot of people are dealing with PTSD at various levels and the whole thing is going to take a while to sort itself out. Not everybody is going to go back to the same career they had before, not every business is going to survive.
We are living in extraordinary times. There will be books and movies about this period.
Oh I agree and that is fine, we should be able to talk about it and have resources in place to help our work family re-matreiculate. Even my emotionally even keel self, pinnacle of rationality and calmness in the center of the storm (yeah right) has been a little unshuffled in my mental deck lately. Getting the key in the ignition is not the problem but some days hitting the starter is harder than it should be.
It's off topic but we are the kings of thread drift, my wife's father passed away, they were not close as he had remarried when she was very young but he was around and talked and we would visit when in Florida. Anyway when he passed she was named executor of the will so she has been in Florida now for over 60 days packing up things her brother wants, holding garage and estate sales and waiting for the house to transfer to her name so she can sell it. This is the longest period in our 20+ years together of being apart and it has been challenging for me. She keeps me centered and we do well together so the combination of being isolated, actually going through a week of having COVID and the recovery and now the restart by myself has added another flavor to this time.
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Understood Scott, sorry for the loss in your family.
Managing the psyche can be a challenge for sure.
For me, it's quiet time at night out on the back patio with my dogs and a good cigar. That's basically my daily meditation or quiet time - without which things gradually decline to "off center" if you know what I mean.
Your self awareness is good sir - may she return home soon and things return to normal.